Where the Dark Stands Still

by A.B. Poranek

because trees cannot grow without roots

Look toward the light, she reminds herself. Then you will not see the shadow behind you.

That is the difference between a spirit and a demon. Spirits gain power from offerings of food, demons from human flesh. Spirits are given power, while demons take it. “And souls?” Belong to bodies.

“Then why go back there at all?” She blinks. “Why wouldn’t I? That’s home. My family, my village, it’s… it’s my place, I’ve worked hard for it to be my place. If I—if—if I give it up, then what’s the alternative?” She swallows. “If I don’t belong there, then where do I belong?”

That’s just it, isn’t it? She has always been Liska from Stodoła, minder of livestock and daughter of a healer. Without her home to define her, she is left with nothing at all. Nothing but her magic and the guilt it carries.

Magic is the art of manipulating souls, of asking things to become other things.

Only pain, unlike flame, cannot disappear.

“If I look like a monster,” he says roughly, “then no one will be surprised when I do monstrous things.”

“He does not deserve you, Liska Radost.” “Nor I him,” she replies. “But nothing is ever equal with humans, really—we give and we take, the scales ever tipping. That’s just the way of it. I am what he has, and he is what I have—there’s no point keeping score.”

if the world has not prepared a place for you, you must take up a hammer and chisel and carve one out for yourself.”

“You are not a monster, Liska Radost. You are sunlight, and you breathe life into everything you touch.”

(Of women, he’s heard it said: “She will be the end of me,” or “She will be my undoing.” None of that is true for Liska Radost. She is not the end of anything, but the beginning of everything. He has been dead a long time, and she is his resurrection.)

“Leszy, take your magic back,” she grits out. “Take it back so I can heal you!” She is shouting now, furious like she has never been before. “I cannot,” he murmurs. “It’s yours now. It has always been yours, every part of me.”

This is the strangest part of it all: every time Liska meets the stag, she tries to touch him. Every time, her hand passes through. Until one night, one rainy spring night, it does not.